MADRID TO LISBON

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May 8 – Final Day in Madrid

This day started like any other last day in a city, a quick breakfast downstairs, then back to the room to pack. We then stored our bags at the hotel and headed for a last day of Madrid. A simple agenda, one maybe two museums, lunch and a ride on the teleferico (condole). It rained all day, so it was a good thing that most of what we were doing was going to be inside.

Muse Nacional Centro de Arte – Reina Sofia

As the name would imply this museum is devotedly entirely to the history of Spanish art. Meaning, a lot of Picasso, Miro and Dali. The museum itself is well organized and some of the pieces are interesting, but for my part I am not much interested in art much past post-impressionist. The realism, surrealism, Dada, cubism, etc., just do not speak to me. I am especially not a fan of Picasso, there are a few that I do like, but the fast majority just to do much for me. Now, if you are one for this period of art, then this is the place for you. It also does a very good job of tying Spanish history to art as they intertwine together.

There was also an interesting special exhibit regarding the Franco period and the suppression of free expression in the art world. It was lacking on real depth and they seemed to be afraid to speak out about what a dark period of time it was for Spain. The Germans to a much better job of dealing with Hitler than the Spanish do with Franco.

We spent about 3 hours here. Jerry enjoyed it much more than I did, because he likes Dali and Picasso. But by the end of the visit we had both had enough of Picasso and Dali to last quite some time.

Lunch

Before, I move on to lunch, just a quick comment about the benefit of a city pass (and most major cities have one) we walked right in the museum while others waited in line for about an hour. Not to mention that if you actually do at least 6 or7 things on the card, it saves you money in addition to the time from not standing in line.

Next stop was lunch, from the Queen Sofia museum to La Paella de la Reina, (paella of the queen). This would be our only paella of the trip so I tried to pick out a good one. This was also a make up for not begin able to come to Madrid and Lisbon for Jerry’s 50^th birthday. The restaurant truly specializes in paella they had at least 20 different versions, mostly seafood (all with clams) and a few with chicken, rabbit or chorizo. We choose the chicken, chorizo and vegetables. Brief note: Spanish chorizo is nothing like you will get in the US, it has much more flavor and heat than what you can buy back home.

Paella when made properly takes a minimum of 35 minutes more like an hour. While this paella was good it did come out a bit quick, which leads me to believe that much of it was cooked ahead of time and the final cooking to achieve the succoarat was all that was done to order. Succoarat is the best part and it isn’t a perfect paella without it. It is the crispy part where the sofrito and rice have caramelized. Sofrito is the paella base, garlic, onions and tomatoes cooked until dark red. In any event it was good and certainly better than anything we have ever had in New York, but not as good as other places in Spain, and yes not as good as mine. But I spend several hours making mind, including the stock from scratch. We also had a really good pitcher of Sangria.

At the end of the day, it was a good final lunch. After lunch we headed in search of the elusive Deutsche bank, so I could avoid ATM fees, well after being misguided by google maps yet again, we finally located one, and it didn’t work. All was not lost, as we were in the same area as the condole that took you from old Madrid to the center of the large park. This would be the last thing we would have time to do before heading to the train station. The views of the palace and the old city were beautiful and would only have been better had the weather cooperated. We did the round trip, but first had to go through the oh so hated need to take your picture so you can buy it at the other end, of which we didn’t and never would. They get so offended with you just say no to the picture in the first place. Usually, I am not a fan of being up in the air, but this wasn’t too bad and not that high, I figured if the cable snapped we wouldn’t die, just break a few things.

That brings the Madrid portion to an end. We successfully; got ourselves to the train station after a few misinterpretations of changes to the metro route were solved. College Spanish has paid off now and then.

Before moving on to the Trenhotel and our first day in Lisbon I must first, as is tradition, sum up my thoughts about Madrid.

As a city, Madrid rivals any world class large city. It is stepped in history and art. The city does a pretty good job making sure the new and the old can co-exist. As for art, it certainly has its share of world class museums, many say the Prado is the best in the world, while it is an excellent museum, my favorite is the Orsay in Paris. It does seem that Madrid may be at risk of becoming like any other major metropolitan area and loose its connection to Spanish culture. The younger generations, like so many in other countries, do not appear to have an appreciation of their own history or cultural significance. In fact, you couldn’t tell the difference between a 20 something in Madrid or New York, maybe the language but that is about it. They are as obsessed with their gadgets and pop culture as any 20 something in the US, I fear our world maybe doomed. The pace in Madrid is much more relaxed than New York or London, but that is a function of Spain and everything is slower here and just the more relaxed nature of Europeans in general.

Madrid is worth a return trip, perhaps with better museum, and fewer museum, since we pretty much conquered the big ones this trip. I enjoyed Madrid and like the city, but it does not crack my top 10 favorite cities in the world and there are other cities in Spain, I prefer over Madrid.

Now for the best of. . .

Best Meal: clearly our first night at dinner. It was an unexpected gem found just blocks from our hotel and while the restaurant itself had seen better days, the food was the best in Madrid. Botin was a great food, but El Ingenio was just the best traditional tapas we love.

Best Experience: Flamenco Dinner show, truly a wonderful last night.

Overall Highlight: The Royal Palace, how can you not like something inspired by Versailles.

TrenHotel 332

The next part of our trip was an overnight train to Lisbon. Now, we have had mixed experiences with overnight train travel. In general, we much prefer to go by train, especially in Europe, over any other form of travel. On occasion, the overnight train has been less than prefect; from the trip to Palermo with the argumentative older Italian gentlemen, to the freezing room in Thailand. With the exception of Thailand, all previous overnights have been hostel style, meaning shared sleeping quarters. However, this was just us, bunks yes, but still our own private room with a wash basin. Just made for much less stress than when sharing sleeping quarters with those you don’t know.

The room is small, it’s a train, don’t expect a queen size bed, you’re going to get bunk beds but they are clean and fairly comfortable. They also provided a complete toiletry package, toothbrush, tooth paste, etc. The café car had a real kitchen serving real food, unlike Amtrak who can seem to get anything right. We had a late lunch so we didn’t eat on the train, but one of the nicest meals (not in great food, just good experience) was on the overnight train from Rome to Paris. We did have a bottle of wine left from the room and I went to the bar car for back up. The train ride was pleasant and while not the best night sleep, it’s better than a plane. The trained pulled in to Lisbon and 7:20 so we didn’t get much sleep and are pretty tired today, still got a full day in.

There was a nice British couple on a 4-week tour of Europe in the room next to us, we chatted a bit before the train left the station, and then again in the morning. They had been to many of the places we have been on prior trips, and it felt as if it was their first real European trip, which seems crazy to me when they live in England and it takes nothing for them to get to Contiental Europe, as opposed to the minimum 7 hours it takes us.

Lisbon

We arrived in Station Oriente promptly at 7:20 am on Monday May 9, there is a one-hour time difference, so we gained an hour, or lost an hour of sleep. When entering Lisbon by train, do not let the initial sights or the sights on the trip in to town influence your thoughts of Lisbon. The train station is just a plane station, not the grandeur of many European stations and the taxi ride in does not exactly take you through the picture post care sections of the city. But once you arrive to the heart, Lisbon is a striking city, even in the rain. Our hotel, the Lisbon Arsenal Suites, is in the center of Baxia and easy access to transportation and other areas of the city. It is about 2 blocks from Praca do Comercio, the once site of the royal palace now I very large square surrounded by shops and restaurants. It was 7:45 so we could not check in but we did store our luggage and they let us partake of the daily breakfast, included with the rest of the stay, but of course had to pay for today. It was pretty much the same as in Madrid, with the exception they did a better job of keeping everything stocked, have real coffee and a few more hot items. Other than that, it is your basic and standard breakfast you get with most European rooms these days.

After breakfast we headed to the tourist office to get our Lisboa City cards, which is an all in one museum pass and transportation ticket. The women in the tourist office were very nice and helpful, I will say, I was prepared for a language issue because I know zero Portuguese but it isn’t really necessary, pretty much everyone speaks English. We picked up our passes and were off to the Metro to our first stop of the day the Lisbon hop-on-hop-off tour. We had to wait about 40 minutes for the first bus, but trestaurahat was fine, just watched people and took in the sights of restauradores area, which once was full of lovely homes and is not pretty much a shopping street, in fact, I think that might be there past time here shopping. Everywhere you turn there is a mall, or shopping street full of designer stores, blending beautiful tile buildings with chic (yuk hate that word) boutiques.

The tour was about 2 hours and covered a majority of the old sections of the City. It gave us a good overall view of the city and helped with places we would return to later and those that we no longer needed to visit. One interesting site was the bull ring. It was built in Arabic style and in the heart of a residential area. While they still have bull fights in Portugal, they long ago stopped killing the bulls. Another interesting stop was the prison, again in the heart of the city. We didn’t take many pictures on the bus, as we were on the first level because we didn’t really want to sit outside on the top deck in the rain.

We got off the same stop we got on so we could walk across Avenida da Liberdad and take the Funicular or as they say here Elevador, to the top of a hill for a panoramic view of the city. The Tram “Elevador de Gloria” was quite old and wound its way up a steep hill. There were several hotels on this hill and I can’t imagine lugging the suit cases up the steep hill, but people were doing it. At the top of the ride we were treated to a breath taking view of Lisbon, St. Georges Castle to the river. The rain even stopped for a bit and yes the sun made an appearance.

We then round our way down the hill back towards the Baxia area and Rossio square. Rossio is another large plaza surrounded with restaurants, shops etc. Normally, we would not eat in an area like this because it tends to be very touristy and overpriced. However, we did find a place to our liking just off the square called San Siro, yes they had a Hawker and the menu was on a large sign in at least 8 languages, but there were also some older local couples eating there, so we decided it was worth a go. The food was pretty good, they do charge you for everything, including the butter, but that seems to be typical of Spain and Portugal. The big thing here is codfish, so we both had a different version. They first brought a sampler plate of olives, seafood pate, and a local cheese, we only took the olives and cheese as had no idea what was in the seafood pate. The cheese was incredible more like butter than cheese it is from the south and called Sabor Alentejano. We both had different salads, mine a simple green tomato and onions, Jerry’s a mixed salad. There was also an excellent bottle of Portuguese wine called Planura Tinto. Our main plate was Bacalhau minhota for Jerry and Bacalhau laga for me. The difference was in the cooking style, Jerrys fried mine oven roasted, Jerry’s had crispy potatoes and I had roasted. The fish was good, a little bony, but still good.

After lunch it was back to the hotel to check in and relax before dinner. Jerry made the wine run, wine-thirty is more in our room this trip, gives me time to blog, saves money and just allows us to relax. The room is big, even a king size bed. One of the bigger rooms we have ever had in Europe. It is time to do laundry so I did a bit of googling to find a place close to us that we can drop off and pick up later. The child (because he really can’t be more than 12) at the front desk made several restaurant recommendations and kindly made us a reservation for tonight. We were just a little too tired to do the work ourselves tonight.

Another note about ATM’s here in Portugal you cannot take out more than 200 euros at any one time and can only do that twice a day. Means a few more trips to the ATM than I care for and Bank of America will probably try to protect me now and should off my card, leading to a few hours of drama I don’t want to participate in.

Dinner

As previously mentioned the young man at the front desk suggested a place for dinner this evening and made the reservation for us. I was dubious at first, when I knew where we were going. We had walked by this place earlier that day and they were pumping out music with a loud thump thump thump as if you were in Ibiza or Niece. When we walked in we were greeted warmly and the atmosphere was nothing like early today. English was freely spoken, which is good and bad. If they speak English we are not encouraged to learn any Portuguese, and we will because we’re going to be here for 7 days and we need to do a better job of respecting their language. Further, they may speak English, but things are always lost in translation and tonight was a perfect example.

We had a nice younger guy as our waiter and he did everything he could to recommend local dishes and wines. He was very knowledgeable about the wines, but was pretty knew to being a waiter. As is your way, we started with a class of champagne, first place we have been that actually had it by the class, well we didn’t start with it, because he got flustered when the wine he recommended for us was not available. That led to a few minute downward spiral and when the wine was figured out he had totally forgotten about the champagne. We finally did get it half way through our first course. Better late than never. Not that I didn’t get a little bit irritated by it all, but Jerry kept me in line and everything turned out fine.

The dinner itself was very nice, the wine was more than we are used to paying for, because it is just so very cheap in Spain, a little pricier here. It was also more expensive as the restaurant itself was not one we would normally go to so early in a visit to a new city. That all being said, it was a nice meal, and what we had was in fact some of the best food so far.

We started with some bread, which of course they charge you for, that came with three different spreads, butter, a cheese spread and an olive tapenade, which the first waiter didn’t even know what it was (training training training). We both had a soup for a starter, Jerry had a cold cantaloupe soup with crispy ham and I had a Tomato basil with a Poached egg. They were both very good. Our mains were both meat based. Jerry had Tornedo Novilho or beef torandes with a really could serra cheese sauce. I had Bochechas Porco Preto, Iberian pork cheeks braised in red wine. Again very good.

We did finally get the wine figured out and had a bottle of Abibies Reservea. The true highlight of the meal was dessert, and that is rarely the case as we are not really sweet type people. I had a pear poached in port then baked in filo, with a vanilla cream on the side. Jerry had a sponge case, again with serra chees and a tomato jam, at first bite he thought it was strawberry. I took a bite and knew instantly it was not strawberry, you can’t fool an Oregonian when it comes to anything strawberry. Because of the early miscommunication we were given a complimentary glass of muscatel.

A rough start ended on a very sweet note, literally.

We are back in the room and the rain has returned, it is splatting on the streets below and the sidewalks that Jerry is in love with. They are very unique as you can see.

Tomorrow is a full day of sightseeing on the hill and a laundry stop.

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Photos

Picasso
I like this one